LOVERS by Shan

Ericka Hart (she/they) is a sex educator, author, and breast cancer survivor who has spent their career arguing that pleasure isn't a luxury — it's a right that's been systematically withheld from Black, brown, queer, and disabled bodies.

In this conversation, Erica and Shan trace the throughline from childhood activism that was never a choice, to being expelled from Peace Corps for loving who they loved, to the night they disclosed a double mastectomy mid-hookup and got the response that became their whole love story: "titties, I don't care." They talk about going topless at Afropunk and getting turned into "inspiration porn" instead of being seen as desirable, and about the gap between the two: being praised for surviving versus being wanted for who you actually are.

Erica shares what it actually means to write a book,  Nasty Work, for the most marginalized people, because when you center the people the world has held least, everybody gets to see themselves.

This is a conversation about reclaiming a body the world has always tried to act on instead of let you inhabit, and what it costs, and what it feels like, to do that work on your own terms, even when it's still in progress.

Follow Ericka Hart

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ihartericka/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ihartericka1Website: https://ihartericka.com/

Book: Nasty Work: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/238226976-nasty-work

Listen to Hoodrat to Headwrap (with Ebony Donnley): https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/hoodrat-to-headwrap-a-decolonized-podcast/id1279429651 

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Thanks to Stasis for sponsoring this video. Hold your stimulant to a higher standard — go to https://yt.link/iD6LFRL and use code LOVERS for 15% off your first order. I'm sharing this in my personal capacity. Always speak with your own healthcare provider about what's right for you. #ad #StasisPartner

*These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

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Ezee (also known as Young Ezee) is an Atlanta-based comedian, actor, and content creator with over 6.6 million followers across platforms, known for her signature stud energy, her queer-centric digital shows, and her upcoming stand-up special Another Little Lesbian.

This conversation goes somewhere most relationship content doesn't: the specific weight of being the one who always has to hold it together — not because you're a man, but because you look like one. Ezee talks about what it cost her to suppress her emotions to fit a role her partners assigned based on how she presents, the moment she realized she'd been leaking that suppression as rage instead of tears, and how her relationship with her fiancée Natalie became the first place she felt genuinely safe to be a full woman. Woven through all of it is a double-proposal story that ends up being the most precise illustration possible of what it looks like when someone refuses to let the person they love go unseen.

This one is for anyone who has ever been handed a script they didn't write and loved someone hard enough to finally put it down.

Follow Ezee

https://www.instagram.com/ezee

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@youngezee

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ezee

Follow Andrea Lewis

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andrealewis/?hl=en

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@andrealewischannel

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@missandrealewis?lang=en 

Want more LOVERS?

Follow Shan on Instagram → http://instagram.com/shanboodram

Get a free weekly Love Letter from Shan → http://loversbyshan.com/newsletter

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Explore free quizzes + worksheets → http://loversbyshan.com/quizzes
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Jared Brady and Jonathan Singletary sit down to talk about fatherhood, inheritance, and the difference between intention and what's already in the body.

Jonathan Singletary is a Los Angeles-based musician, songwriter, and founder of Piano & Prayer, a musical meditation and community gathering practice featured in the LA Times that has grown into a meaningful spiritual presence for thousands of people. Jared Brady is a creative director, actor, and co-founder of Shared Entertainment.

Both men are in the middle of the work. Jonathan reaches for his daughter on instinct before the decision clears his mind. Jared watches his father's disappointment move across his own face and recognizes it. Neither of them is reporting from a solved place — they're two fathers who love their kids, who came from fathers they love, and who are sitting with the uncomfortable truth that some of what they're trying not to repeat is already running underneath everything.

What holds this conversation together is a question Jared names explicitly: when you strip away the edited version of yourself, what voice are you actually parenting from? This episode earns its warmth by being honest first — about cost, about inheritance, and about the grace it takes to extend that same grace back to your own father.

This one is for anyone who is actively trying to parent differently than they were parented, and discovering that the work is less about what you know and more about what you notice.

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Show some love on Daddy Day with our sponsor Arya! Go to http://arya.fyi/shan and use code DADDY10 ;)

LOVERS! Get 15% off OneSkin with the code LOVERSBYSHAN at https://www.oneskin.co/LOVERSBYSHAN  #oneskinpod

Showing love to our sponsor Biologica. Take their Quick Hormonal Life Stage Quiz to find the formula that’s right for you, and get up to 32% on your purchase: https://biologica.com/lovers

Lots of love to our sponsor, Quince. Go to quince.com/lovers for FREE shipping and 365-day returns.

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Follow Jonathan Singletary

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jonathansingletary

Website: https://www.jonathansingletary.com

Piano & Prayer: https://www.jonathansingletary.com/piano-and-prayer/patreon

Follow Jared Brady

→ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/enjoyjaredbrady

Want more LOVERS?

Get a free weekly Love Letter → http://loversbyshan.com/newsletter

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https://yt.link/quMC2B9 → thank you for the sponsor of this episode hers. Learn more about hers. 

Inayah on what it actually takes to stop being someone who's always ready to leave.

Inayah is a Houston-born R&B singer and songwriter who first broke through with her viral cover of Ella Mai's "Boo'd Up" in 2018 (a moment that grew her following by over a million people overnight) and has since built a catalog — and a public identity — around emotional honesty, female independence, and not needing a man. Her forthcoming album is called Therapy Wasn't Enough, which is also the most accurate description of where this conversation begins.

In this episode, Inayah gets specific about what it means to be a leaver (someone who, at any given moment, is already scanning for the reason to go) and what it has actually cost her to try to become something different inside a relationship with a partner whose traditional Jamaican values regularly collide with her experience as a modern American woman building her own life on her own terms. Neither of them has figured it out yet (they're not reporting from the finish line here), and that honesty is exactly what makes this conversation worth sitting with.

This one is for anyone who loves someone and still can't quite make themselves put both feet in.

Big love to the sponsor of this episode, Masterclass. Right now, our listeners get an additional 15% off any MasterClass annual membership at masterclass.com/lovers. 

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Follow Inayah

Instagram: http://instagram.com/inayah/

Stream Therapy Wasn't Enough: https://inayahofficial.com/

Want more Lover?

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Sex Is a Skill. Beducated is where you learn it. Join Beducated today at https://beducate.me/loversbyshan. 

Big love to the sponsor of this episode, CozyEarth! Head to https://cozyearth.com/LOVERS and use my code LOVERS for an exclusive 20% off.

Head to www.penguinrandomhouse.com to get your copy of Caro Claire Burke’s new book Yesteryear, a gripping, darkly funny thriller about an influencer trapped in a nightmare version of the past.

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Dondré Whitfield on why men cheat — and what nobody taught them about love.

Dondré Whitfield is an actor best known for his roles in Guiding Light, Queen Sugar, and The Game, and the author of Male vs. Man (a book about what it actually means to be a man in the context of family, fatherhood, and love). In this conversation, he traces the origin of his infidelity not to a moment of weakness but to a moment of watching his father lust after other women in plain sight (that was the day, he says, the cheater in him was born — not because he wanted to be that man, but because he didn't yet know he had a choice).

What follows is one of the most specific and honest conversations we've had on this show about what it looks like when a man finally decides to understand himself and then builds an entire framework so his children don't have to start from zero. His concept, "we date as a family" (where the whole family meets not just the person a child is dating but their father too, so everyone can help scaffold the relationship toward something healthy), is practical, radical, and worth hearing in full.

Follow Dondré Whitfield

Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/alldondre/ Website → https://www.dondrewhitfield.com/ Get Dondré's book Male vs. Man → https://a.co/d/0het8rPc

Want more Lover?

Shan’s AI trained to give you her advice → http://loversbyshan.com 

Get a free weekly Love Letter → http://loversbyshan.com/newsletter 

Join the Lovers Community → https://www.loversbyshan.com/community Explore free quizzes + worksheets → http://loversbyshan.com/quizzes
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